This is the first of my writing to be created into a movie. The Death of Kevin Frye was filmed in 2009.
Here's where I'm going with my something to say. Check out the link if you have something to say .
The Art and Writing of Coleen Frazer-Hambrick |
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This is the first of my writing to be created into a movie. The Death of Kevin Frye was filmed in 2009. Here's where I'm going with my something to say. Check out the link if you have something to say . “…Ill deeds have been done here; but let now all enmity that lies between you be put away, for it was contrived by the Enemy and works his will….” ~ Gandalf to servants of Denethor in The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Although J.R.R. Tolkien did not intend to make The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings allegorical, nevertheless there are elements in these stories that can be applied to our lives. It is the mark of a great author that his stories can live on and have significance well past his own lifetime and such is the case with these wonderful stories. Those who have read this story know that these stories are epic good versus evil and in this particular scene, the Great Enemy that threatened to swallow all of Middle Earth in darkness had caused dissension and fighting among those who were fighting against him. Tolkien speaks through Gandalf a warning that we would do well to pay attention to, because all too often the enemy sows seeds of discord even among God’s people. Those who love the Lord do not realize the enemy of their souls has used our humanity against us and caused strife within the body of Christ. We get caught up in the unimportant and lose sight of what our focus should be. Deep within us, there is a betrayer that looks for every opportunity to goad us into forgetting what is truly important. So what is truly important? Jesus told us he was giving us a new commandment, and that is that we are to love one another, and by this all people will see that we belong to him. When we allow ourselves to be in competition with each other, we allow Satan to kill that love we have for one another and so be a witness to the opposite of what we want, which is to share the love of Jesus with the world around us. When we are at odds with each other and we work Satan’s will. Rich Mullins wrote a song, We Are Not as Strong as We Think We Are, which wrote after his break up with his fiancé; I think the song applies to us. “If you make me laugh I know I can make you like me, ‘cause when I laugh I can be a lot of fun, but when we can’t do that I know that it is frightening what I don’t know is why we can’t hold on, can’t hold on…” It’s a powerful song about the heartache we cause each other, but also the heartache we cause the Lord. He didn’t die for us only to have us struggle with each other.
We know we are in a war and we know that the Lord has already won. The enemy is still fighting because he still has the potential to destroy the lives of men and women. What better way than to use God’s children? After all, what really matters? This morning I was reading the book, No Rusty Swords, which is a volume of the collection of writings and lectures by Dietrich Bonheoffer. In my reading today, he was talking about transcendence. I was struck with a strange thought about myself that was sort of a transcendent thought. Those of you who know me know I’m just an average woman, I’m not deep thinking intellectual; but I do like to read things and ponder things that challenge my thinking and my faith….that is to say, I like to ponder things that challenge my faith to make it stronger. I am convinced that Jesus is, indeed The Way, the Truth and the Life and I’m going to follow his way until I die; but back to transcendence. In this thought, it seems I was taken back to Falfurrias Texas (where I was born) when I was a child visiting our Mama Grande in the mid to late 60s. It seemed to me, or seems to me now (I’m not sure which) that my memory sees Falfurrias as it must have been in the 30s rather than in the 60s during my childhood. Perhaps it is that Falfurrias, like so many other small towns, doesn’t change that much over the decades; but it also may be that I experienced a moment of transcendence at just that moment; as if I was looking at myself through the eyes of another. Perhaps that’s the way we view ourselves in our own personal history and in our own personal future. We see ourselves, not so much as a part of who we are, as much as who we were. It’s like we’re watching a movie about someone else. Or maybe it’s just me that sees myself as I was. I’m certainly not the person I was. For one thing, I’m much more confident and I know who I am more than ever in my life. Is this because of me or anything I did on my own? Not hardly. If I was left to myself, I’d probably be a type of sniveling, passive aggressive woman who uses manipulation as a tactic to get what she wants. It is because of Jesus in me that I can beat that other woman who lives within me down. The Bible tells us that when we become a Christian, we are new creatures. But we also have to remember that we can’t stop at that point. We have to continue to become a new creature. It’s not a past tense or passive thing. It’s ever present, because that old self we were or we were becoming is always trying to come back from the dead, just like a zombie we can’t kill. Now, there are people who will be glad to guide you in the best way to kill zombies, but really, there is only one zombie each of us has the ability to kill and that’s the zombie that lives within ourselves. And since we can only kill that inner zombie, the only way to truly kill it is to saturate oneself in God’s word and to live with a desire to obey God in all things. Which brings me to another thing that D Bonheoffer said in The Cost of Discipleship, “Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.” Or, as Jesus put it, “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.” When we live to obey God through Jesus, we become more that new creature and the old creature diminishes. We look at ourselves as if that earlier version of self is a totally different person, and those who knew that person as he or she was before would see a transformation that cannot be explained without the grace of God. Seek God and seek to obey him. Only through believing and obeying can we reach the full potential of who we are. Here's where I'm going with my something to say. Check out the link and see if you'd like to have something to say using this vehicle. |
AuthorColeen Frazer-Hambrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Oklahoma with her husband. They have raised three boys and now have four grandboys. Along with writing and photography, Coleen and her husband are active members of a Wesleyan church. Archives
May 2022
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